NCAA Tourney to return to Rose Garden in 2012

NCAA basketball tournament to return to Portland in 2012

By Mike Tokito, The Oregonian
September 21, 2009, 2:18PM

When the Oregon Sports Authority spearheaded an effort to get the state to eliminate the Sports Action lottery games in 2005, the aim was to get the NCAA Basketball Tournament to become a regular event in the state.

Thomas Boyd, The OregonianGonzaga and Western Kentucky battled at the Rose Garden in March.The plan will take another big step in 2012, when March Madness returns to Portland's Rose Garden for a subregional. Four first-round games will be played on Thursday, March 15, and two second-round games will be held on Saturday, March 17.

This past March, the tournament was played in Oregon for the first time since 1983, and the event quickly sold out, with Pacific Northwest teams Washington and Gonzaga drawing large partisan crowds for their games.

Soon after the subregional, the Oregon Sports Authority and its partners -- the University of Oregon (which served as host school), the Rose Quarter and Travel Portland -- began assembling a bid for the next block of available dates. The NCAA bids out three years of the tournament at a time, and in June the Oregon group submitted bids for subregionals and regionals in the 2011-13 block.

"It was highly competitive," said Drew Mahalic, the Oregon Sports Authority's chief executive officer. "We heard that there were 70 bids from all over the country. To be able to be chosen among that kind of competition is something that we all need to be really proud of in Oregon."

Mahalic said the success of this year's event made Portland an easier sell. He said it was difficult to determine overall economic impact but he has heard plenty of positive anecdotal evidence, such as that the East Bank Saloon had a 40 percent boost in sales during the tournament.

"That's pretty typical of the kind of business that the basketball tournament brings to the hotels, the restaurants, the retail stores," he said.

Before this year, the NCAA Tournament had not been played in Oregon since 1983, when a regional was held at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis, and was last played in Portland in 1975, when the quarterfinals were played at Memorial Coliseum. The NCAA had been reluctant to return because of state-run sports gambling, but Portland was awarded the berth in 2006 after the state agreed to eliminate Sports Action in 2005.

The next step for Portland would be to get a regional, which would feature third- and fourth-round games. Mahalic points out that a subregional has some advantages over a regional, such as having eight teams and their fans come in, as opposed to four for a regional. But certainly, the higher prestige of a regional is something the group wants.

"I still think we need to prove ourselves in terms of experience in conducting the tournament, and certainly we'll have that after 2012," he said.

-- Mike Tokito

NewUPFan wrote:I guess I know what I will be doing March 15th and 17th 2012.